Today's lesson: a safe planet is a human right

By Ava Woodard

June 7, 2019 — 12.00am

The drought is creeping right up to our front door steps. Months and months without rain in regional Australia, following the hottest summer on record and now, even Sydney is feeling the impact with water restrictions imposed for the first time in a decade.

These climate change impacts are the exact reason why my fellow students and I have been taking to the streets this year to demand that the federal government stops turning a blind eye to what is going on around us.

A car-charging station at Tesla\'s wind and solar battery plant outside of Jamestown, South Australia.Credit:AAP

I am in my HSC year at school. One of my courses is law, in which we study human rights. The right to a safe, healthy and ecologically balanced environment is promoted by the UN’s environment program. All states have an obligation to protect the environment as “a prerequisite for the enjoyment of human rights”, according to the UN.

But we, as a country, are having these rights blatantly ignored. Our environment is being degraded as continually rising carbon emissions heat up our world. Man-made climate change is having a worsening impact on our land and influencing more frequent and extreme weather events, such as the prolonged drought that we are experiencing now.

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Last summer was the hottest on record. Period. And it’s going to get hotter and hotter if we do nothing about it.

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Recently, I came back from a trip to Tasmania where we visited the beautiful Cradle Mountain national park. As we drove to the entrance, we passed acres and acres of bleached trees denuded of their foliage. I thought at first that it must have been the result of a fire. But no, these spectral forests were the result of successive seasons of drought. And in Tasmania of all places, the wettest state in Australia.

When I came back from the trip, I read that Scott Morrison said he would “burn for the Australian people every single day". An ironic choice of words considering we as a country are burning up every day – parched agricultural lands and our cities hot, dry, dusty and becoming, on some days, borderline unlivable.

Our leaders continue to support coal when so many other countries have committed to phase it out and transition to renewable energy. Australia has the potential to be a leader in solar and wind power and yet we are letting opportunities pass us by.

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We can protect not only our environment but also our livelihoods and economy. Local communities can lower electricity bills by harnessing free energy from the wind and sun. We can act against the rising costs of extreme weather events.

It is our obligation to act now, along with the rest of the world. Talk to your MPs; open their minds. Open the door to change and walk through it. We all deserve a better future.